Where the Heart Is by Kaje Harper

Dr. Trevor Carson had a good life as a city veterinarian, until his father died. Taking over his dad’s remote country practice was supposed to be temporary, but Trevor found himself loving the place. If only it didn’t mean separation from his partner, Michael. A Christmas visit from Michael gives each of them a chance to decide if home is a place or a person.

Review:

A sweet holiday romance that really makes the most of its novelette length, this proved a great introduction to Kaje Harper’s writing for me.

Where the Heart Is is set over a few hours late on Christmas Eve, and begins with vet Trevor hoping to get away from the clinic when a local with a colicky pony turns up. He has a strong sense of duty to the animals in his care, but this couldn’t have come at a worse time because his boyfriend Michael is visiting and they’ve barely had time to say hello yet, after a month apart.

The early part of the story is spent giving us a flavour of Trev’s life as a country vet while Mike waits for him back in the cabin, but the author uses this opportunity to show just how conflicted Trev and Mike both are about their circumstances. Trevor has fallen back in love with country life, but is suffering extreme loneliness and a nagging sense that he isn’t being himself in the “God infested” wilderness:

A few times he’d started chatting lightly to someone, and then he’d heard the mannerisms and the phrases of his big-city out-and-gay persona come to life, and stopped talking abruptly. So yeah, maybe he did seem like some kind of robot doctor. Even Trevor didn’t really like the closed down person he’d been for the last three months.

Meanwhile, Mike is dealing with being left at home alone again – something he’s become quite used to as Trevor’s partner. It’s clear that he is on the cusp of making a decision about moving down there to be with the love of his life, but he’s certainly not willing to step back into the closet to do so.

When Trevor finally makes it home, there is some smoking hot sex followed by delightfully light and witty conversation. The two men communicate well, but it will take more than a quickie up against the door to sort out everything that needs to be put right. Fortunately Trevor is called out again, and this time he decides to ask Mike to tag along…

I thought the dilemma both men were in was a great conflict for a story of this length, and Kaje Harper’s writing flows beautifully. I got a real sense of place and of the everyday details of Trevor’s life, as well as what kind of men the two lovers are and how well they get along together. There are no huge surprises in store, but the story is sweetly romantic with some extremely sexy scenes thrown in for good measure.

The only thing that really jarred me, strangely enough, was the abruptness of the first sex scene. On my second read through I figured out why – we are thrown from a rather traumatic scene at Trevor’s work, straight into the sex with very little buffering in-between. Normally, when a story has a sex scene this hot and explicit there is more of a build up to it, with the characters noticing each other and flirting. Here that didn’t happen, because of course they’re already a couple. I’m not exactly criticising this aspect because I’m sure it wouldn’t be a problem to most readers, but it did affect my overall enjoyment of the story on the first read through so I thought I should mention it.

To sum it all up, this was a great holiday story with lovable characters, a believable conflict and fluent, captivating writing. I’ll definitely be looking up more of Kaje Harper’s work in the future.

I’ve never tried this author but you’ve definitely interested me. I’m dying to know how they work it out. 🙂 We’ll have to tell Kris, she has a thing for vets in stories. I’ll have to keep the others Chris mentioned in mind as well.

I reckon you’ll enjoy it, Tam. It’s a really solid example of how to make backstory work in a limited word count, and the characters were engaging – I was really rooting for them to find a solution to their problem 🙂